Panjab: Journeys Through Fault Lines

by Amandeep Sandhu

The Khalistan movement has been crushed, but the stories grow, and continue to evoke mixed responses from the people. If the state believed that the stories would fade away with time, then it is not happening. A generation has passed, the ones who directly suffered the atrocities are passing away or will pass away, but families remember their grandfathers and grandmothers, uncles and aunts. Those abroad raise their voices because they are in relatively safer conditions, in societies where the freedom of speech and protest is intact. The popular discourse that the Indian state creates—on the basis of these demands—is that those people are pro-Khalistan. Yet, the Indian state has never looked critically at itself.